Happy Independence Day
I was emailing back and forth with my old friend Grant Morris, a mad New Zealander. I remember when he was an alternative DJ in New Orleans and he’d play my song ‘I Love You Goodbye’ and people would call in and complain about the fact I said ‘county sheriff’ when in fact Louisiana has parishes, not counties; and they’d marvel at how I could drive all night to the Everglades (Florida) and then crash the car and stand there listening to the bayou (Louisiana!) rain. I could only reply that when you’re writing song lyrics, the historical and geographical (and even grammatical!) precision of the words is less important than how it SINGS. Grant wrote me this back today… very pertinent on the lyrical front, but ending with a classic quote about 4th July that could only have come from an elderly New Zealand mum.
“I agree with you 100%. Better that it sings well than makes any literal sense. I’m not sure that you even WANT a song to make literal sense. Even country songs that are the most literal of all aren’t really. What the hell is a “ring of fireâ€? When you “walk the line†how do you actually keep your “eye out for the ties that bindâ€? What does that even mean? It would be a pretty funny SNL sketch to sit down with some of the most famous song lyrics in a meeting with an executive and his results of a focus group test. “Do you have to WANT to hold her hand? Couldn’t it be something a little more ambitious? Could you want to hold her “bagâ€? It could be about shopping and everybody loves to shop don’t they?†Looking at lyrics cold without music is crazy. Hey, you know who you might like who sings some pretty good narrative songs, Rodney Crowell. Do you know his stuff? If not check out a 2001 album called The Houston Kid and listen to I Walk The Line (revisited) and you’ll be hooked from there.
Happy 4th of July! I was talking to my mother on Skype yesterday and she asked me “Who does the United States celebrate independence from?â€. I told her “The Britishâ€. She looked genuinely surprised and said, “Did they have the Poms over there as well?â€.”
What comes first for you Thomas; lyrics or music? I guess it must vary from track to track, but I was wondering if there were certain tracks from your cannon that reflect the song or the lyrics determining the shape of the track.
Happy 4th of July!
Andrew
The Walk the Line lyric is actually: “I keep the ends out for the tie that binds”. Both it and Ring of Fire are quite literal, lyrically, if one knows anything about the history of Johnny Cash and June Carter.
There are a ton of lyrics that make no sense at all without their music and bend all kinds of rules to make rhymes fit. But Cash/Carter tunes, especially Walk the Line (Cash) and Ring of Fire (Carter), aren’t among them.
That said, I had to look up what “Pom” meant, so hey, it’s probably just me. Usually is.
Should mention that *misheard* lyrics can be really funny. For instance, John Fogerty’s Bad Moon Rising.
“There’s a bad moon on the rise” is famous for being heard as “There’s a bathroom on the right”
check out the KissThisGuy site (http://www.kissthisguy.com/) for some real corkers.
Huh. Never bothered me a bit, despite the fact that I’m familiar with the geography. I guess I assumed that the Everglades part was literal and the bayou rain was figurative — i.e., some part of the narrator’s mind was back in Louisiana.
And to further justify the lyrics as is: of course the narrator would think that the guy who pulled him over was a county sheriff — he’s not from ’round those parts, he’s an English boy! Can’t expect an English boy to be familiar with minutiae of local government.
It does remind me a bit of how surprised I was to learn that Dave Allen/Barry Andrews of Shriekback wrote the music first and then, supposedly, jumbled in whatever lyrics would fit. If it’s true, some of their lyrics were brilliant glossolalia. Maybe they were just being flippant, though.
Poms! Pommies!! LOL. That was classic.
Happy belated 4th, though it’s really not too late, since some of the Declaration signers didn’t put their names down till August.
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
That’s all I have to say to you.
America was founded in swamps – half of Washington, D.C.
is reclaimed swampland, and the same is true of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. New Orleans was built by the French on reclaimed
swampland. Louisiana has parishes instead of counties because
it was purchased from France, and even most Americans,
from other States, don’t know that Louisiana doesn’t have
“county” sheriffs, so, don’t get too stressed about the lyrics
not being “correct” in any geographical sense.